Opinion: 6 lessons the West has learned in the 6 months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Monday, August 22nd 2022, 11:28 AM CDT
Updated: Monday, August 22nd 2022, 12:58 PM CDT
Opinion by Daniel Treisman
Six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, it's still not clear how this war will end. Ukraine, which has signaled its intent to launch a new counteroffensive, could retake the Russian-occupied city of Kherson and other parts of the south. But it's also possible that a reinvigorated Russian force will break through to Odesa, closing off Ukraine from the sea. Or the front line might stabilize roughly where it is.
Whatever happens, we can already derive some lessons from the war so far. Its many surprises should force us to question our old assumptions.
One powerful insight from the last half year concerns the importance of individual leaders. The "great man" theory of history is out of fashion these days given the tendency to see human events as the result of deep underlying forces. Those obviously matter. But had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky run away -- as Putin apparently expected or failed to communicate effectively, the Ukrainian resistance might well have been much weaker. Few anticipated that Zelensky, whose ratings had slumped before the Russian invasion, would prove such an inspiring hero.
https://www.kake.com/story/47136850/opinion-what-weve-learned-6-months-after-russias-invasion-of-ukraine
